First Case of HIV‐1 Group O Infection in Spain

Abstract

A 34‐year‐old woman born in Bilbao, a northern city in Spain, was first seen at our institution in April 1995. She had maintained a monogamous sexual relation in the preceding 6 years with a 35‐year‐old male, and previously has sex only sporadically with two other persons. She as well as her three partners were Spanish‐born, and had neither a history of transfusions, nor of injecting drugs, nor were they homosexual.

In Vitro Intersubtype Recombinants of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1: Comparison to Recent and Circulating In Vivo Recombinant Forms

“…Recombination is now evident between nearly every HIV-1 subtype and group (47,50). Many of these ISRs emerged shortly after the divergence of group M subtypes and now exist as CRFs of HIV-1 (8,29,31,47,55,57,64,73 Dynamics Evol., 1999). In addition, increased travel, trade, migration, tourism, and wars have resulted in cocirculation of multiple subtypes outside Africa.…”

Comparative Performance of Three Viral Load Assays on Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) Isolates Representing Group M (Subtypes A to G) and Group O: LCx HIV RNA Quantitative, AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR Version 1.5, and Quantiplex HIV-1 RNA Version 3.0

“…Although HIV-1 group O strains are endemic to West Central Africa and represent a small proportion of total HIV infections, they have attained a relatively widespread distribution, having been identified in France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and the United States (15,32,36,37). Moreover, the recent identification of intergroup (M-O) recombinant strains (30,40) raises the possibility that genetically divergent subgenomic regions of group O viruses may become even more widespread when placed in the context of group M genomes.…”

A New Real-Time Quantitative PCR for Diagnosis and Monitoring of HIV-1 Group O Infection

“…HIV-1 group O (HIV-O) infection is endemic in West Central Africa and particularly in Cameroon, where it accounts for about 1% of HIV diagnoses (2,32). Cases of HIV-O infection have also been reported in countries with links to this region (12,20,24,25). Due to close historical links, a larger number of HIV-O-infected patients are found in France, where a network created to identify and monitor HIV-O (RES-O) has detected 130 cases since the first described case (1,7,14).…”